On
Friday he was two years, six weeks and a day old; exactly the age his big
brother was the day Small was born. I
can’t really believe it – it is a weird feeling knowing that I had a newborn
when my previous toddler was this age!Xander seemed different at this age somehow, older, less baby like.
Maybe this is because he was the only one here and I had no-one to compare him
to, but either way Zachary still feels like my Small. My baby; still so young in so many
of his ways – often still content to play led on his back with his feet in the
air on the carpet!

Zac
continues to be cheeky and feisty and determined. Once he has set his mind on
something there is little hope of deterring him – even when you think you have
distracted him with something else – he doesn’t forget, and within minutes is
back aiming to do whatever it is that he wants to do! Of course this means
we’ve seen some ‘terrible two’ tantrums like we never saw with Alexander!
Zachary really is a different kettle of fish!

He
is a happy, adventurous and mischievous little boy. Zachary loves a joke now,
he loves to run off in the opposite direction and have you chase him, giggling
to himself as he goes, he loves to run and hide and play boo, he loves to
tickle and rough and tumble.He
absolutely adores chasing his big brother around the house and playing rough
and tumble games with him! Zachy, is as often the ring-leader of some mischief,
as Xander!

Zachary
and I gave up feeding just shy of 23 months. I felt so much more emotional than
I had when Xander and I stopped, although I can’t really explain why; maybe
because it had gone on so much longer and had been so easy right from the
start.The 18 month upper limit went
well and truly out of the window because Zac had showed all the signs of still
needing that connection and comfort – and so there felt no real reason to stop.
But I knew when the time was right, over a few weeks he was spending shorter
and shorter time feeding before going into his cot for bed, so it felt like the
right and gentle time for us both to
swap to bottles. Thankfully the transition was easy and painless for us both,
but still now a couple of times a week he pulls at my top and says milk, not
really seriously asking I don’t think, and he accepts that milk is 'all gone' straight away, especially as the weeks have gone on. Now I think it is more
about that he is making a statement that he remembers - it amazes me that he
continues to remember that time we had together 3 months on.

He
is a delight.

My darling Zachary, today you are two
years, six weeks and two days old.

A fully fledged toddler now. On your
birthday you were 83cm tall and 24lb (although I know you have grown a little
bit and put on a bit more weight since then, as we had your two year check this
week!), still my small; still only tracking between the 9th/25th
centile for height and the 25th centile for weight.Like the health visitor said this week – it
doesn’t look like you’re ever going to be six foot and appear to have inherited
Mummy’s genes for size!Your Small
nickname suits you!

At two years old you love books. Your
favourite for such a long time was ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ and you could tell
me all the noises that the animals on the farm said – more recently over
Christmas this favourite seems to have changed to ‘Stickman’. Another Julia
Donaldson fan in the making!

You love colouring in and often ask to
‘cuger’.You also love to paint. You are
such a creative little boy and are so excited to have your hands and feet
painted to do prints. You love glue and sticking.

Ironically though, for a little boy who
loves to paint if anything else messy is on your hands you shout ‘uh uh uh’ at
me with your hand in the air until I’ve got a wet wipe and wiped the speck of
whatever it is off – you do not like having dirt on your hands.

You love puzzles and cars and dinosaurs and
still love Peppa Pig. We have the cutest video of you dinosaur roaring just
like George from Peppa from back in the summer holidays the day after we had
taken you to Peppa Pig World – what a wonderful time you had and have since had
the best time at your Peppa Pig themed birthday party too.

More recently you have discovered In The
Night Garden and have a ‘must take everywhere’ companion now in your Iggle
Piggle cuddly toy. If you’re lucky we’ll get tickets to the live show in the
summer and hopefully you’ll get to meet your real life friend.

You love singing and dancing and bop away
to lots of different tunes. You are such a joy to watch and my favourite time
of the week with you is Tuesday mornings when we go to Happy Hands music class.
You are so confident joining in. Often now you ask Mummy to sing you a song and
join in with me with your own singing and actions; your favourites have been
Horsey Horsey, Twinkle Twinkle, Wheels On The Bus, Row Row Boat and Baa Baa
Black Sheep.

I’ve lost count of all the things you can
say now and it doesn’t matter what you can’t say yet because you understand
everything!You are joining lots of
words together and often saying three word sentences now. You have such an ever
expanding vocabulary – including of course the frequently used word ‘MINE’ –
you my little one have some serious personal space issues!

Sharing at two is never going to be your
forte, (although your sharing skills could also be a lot worse), your main
issue is not liking other children getting too close to you when you are
engrossed with a toy. I find that if you start playing with a set of something
with someone else at the same time you can tolerate their presence, e.g. the
toy kitchen, or duplo, or cars, but if they try to join you after the fact then
you push away to keep them at arms length. Taking turns is something we’re doing lots of
work on at the moment!

You are so clever Zachy. Already you know a
few shapes such as circle, star and triangle and are doing puzzles designed for
much older children with minimal help. You love imitating counting, and get
your pointy finger ready to touch count things in books or your toys. You are
beginning to recite the order of the numbers (sometimes skipping a few) if we
start you off on one. Remarkably you also already seem to recognise what a
number ‘looks like’, because if you see one written down you tell me it is
‘six’ –six is your favourite! It
usually isn’t six, but you already seem to be able to distinguish that numbers and
numerals mean something as symbols. You don’t know the names of the colours yet
(apart from everything is blue, so you know blue is a colour, but not what blue
is!) but you are colour matching and quite deliberately finding matching colour
bricks when building with your duplo. We’re playing lots of colour games at the
moment to help you with colour names and recognition. All of a sudden there
seems to be this burst of brain activity from you and I can’t wait to see what
you know by the time you are two and a half!